What happened to the real man Jesus?

I cringe when I see artistic representations of Jesus.

You know the Jesus I’m talking about. He’s about six feet tall, has a lean long-limbed build, luxurious wavy brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He has piercing blue eyes and a sharp, straight nose. He’s always decked out in a pair of sandals, a radioactively glowing white robe, and a brilliant blue sash.

“Art” Jesus is preternaturally peaceful and has this funny wave that looks like a boy scout salute. He never laughs and rarely smiles and when he does it’s understated and knowing and without teeth.

A Fabio Jesus.

A Ken doll Jesus.

A girly-man Jesus.

A Jesus neutered from his masculinity.

I have trouble relating to this sort of Jesus. I think most men do.

I resonate much more with the male members of the cast surrounding him. They’re the ones in brown robes, with dark eyes and unkempt hair.

They’re people like locust-eating John the Baptist who rebuked Herod and lost his head for it. Or donkey-stubborn Peter whose passions caused him to curse the name of Christ one moment and himself the next. Or even greedy little Zaccheus who scrambled up a tree to see Jesus (making a fool of himself, most likely) and later that day put his money where his mouth was, paying back everyone he had cheated.

The Bible is full of real men. Why do I have such trouble then resonating with our popular view of Jesus?

Much of the problem, I think, revolves around the Jesus we’ve created, someone quite independent of Jesus as depicted in the Bible.

The Jesus we’ve created is quiet and ridiculously nice. His personality is flat and passionless. He has emotions, but they’re muted. The one emotion we allow him to show – love – is one-dimensional and mushy. The other varieties of love, such as tough love for example, are noticeably absent. We’ve created a milquetoast Jesus.

Jesus in the Gospels is more of a regular guy. He was likely a carpenter, as his dad, sporting calloused hands and sweaty clothes and the occasional purple thumbnail from misguided hammers.

He was warm and welcoming with children. He was kind, fair and compassionate. He gave and accepted extravagant love.

He was not above having his arm twisted by his mom: read the story about Jesus changing water to wine and you’ll see what I mean. He was invited to parties, made friends easily and probably had a great sense of humour.

He attracted crowds yet didn’t soften his message for the sake of popularity. He was wise and logical and crafty, and could easily turn entrapping arguments upon themselves. He was so passionate about what he believed that he picked up a whip and chased money changers out of the temple courts, probably yelling the whole way.

And yet he was also self-controlled. He found time to rebuke Peter and re-attach an ear on the way to his own flogging.

A Jesus with chest hair and chutzpah.

A manly Jesus.

A heroic Jesus.

A Jesus comfortable with his masculinity.

There’s a lot of talk today about how men are disconnected from church and how church is not meeting the needs of men. Perhaps the reason is a portrayal of Jesus that’s boring and caffeine-free, and then telling men that to be good Christians they have to suppress their natural instincts and act like this bland Jesus we’ve created.

To involve men in our churches, we will have to make them man-friendly. That means throwing “Art” Jesus in the trash and pointing men to the passionate, heroic, steadfast, strong and wise Jesus.

The church needs to celebrate both masculinity and femininity instead of the tedious androgyny our society seems to champion.

Put simply: men will gravitate towards a church that is comfortable with Christ’s masculinity and lets men be men.

Derek Van Nes attends Faith Works, Winnipeg.